Figure 1

Mechanism of ZFN, TALEN and CRISPR/ Cas9. A. ZFN, TALEN and CRISPR/Cas9 achieve precise and efficient genome modification by inducing targeted DNA DSBs, which would be corrected by NHEJ and HR repair mechanisms. NHEJ-mediated repair leads to the introduction of variable length insertion or deletion. HR-mediated repair could lead to point mutation and gene replacement, in the present of donor DNA. B. TALEs and Cas9 protein fused with effector proteins such as VP64, Mxi1 could regulate expressions of endogenous genes. Additionally, TALEs fused with histone-deacetylating epigenetic effectors could regulate epigenetics status of endogenous genes. CRISPR, Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats; dCas9, inactive Cas9 protein; DSB, Double Strand Breaks; NHEJ, Error-prone Nonhomologous End Joining; HR, Homologous Recombination; InDel, Insertion and Deletion; PAM, Protospacer Adjacent Motif; RNA Pol II, RNA Polymerase II; sgRNA, single guide RNA; TALE, Transcription Activator-Like Effector; TALEN, Transcription Activator-Like Effector Nuclease; ZFN, Zinc Finger Nuclease.